Author Archives: Charles Lambert

48 hours in Barcelona

I spent most of last week in Catalonia, the first few days rather wonderfully in the country near Banyoles (about which I’ll be writing very soon) and the last two in Barcelona. I don’t know how large the real city … Continue reading

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Futile preoccupations…?

A few weeks ago Rob at the Fiction Desk reviewed Any Human Face and, with great generosity, gave away ten free copies of the novel. One of the copies went to the man behind the book blog His Futile Preoccupations… … Continue reading

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Snail-keeping and Sunday salons

Clare Dudman, author of A Place of Meadows and Tall Trees (which I’m currently reading and wholeheartedly recommend – but more of that later), has interviewed me for her Sunday Salon on her literary blog, Keeper of the Snails. We … Continue reading

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The Slaughteryard

Assuming you know nothing of the work of the nineteenth century Argentine writer Esteban Echeverria, you can approach this book, one of the Friday Project’s Library of Lost Books, in two ways. The first is to cut to the chase … Continue reading

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Yin yang? Hmm

Is it just me or are the two people with Barbara Cartland in this photograph Peter Mandelson and Paul McCartney in drag?

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Image

According to an article in today’s Independent, Maria Vittoria Brambilla, the Italian minister for tourism (seen here discussing policy with her employer), has announced that the Palio di Siena, the traditional horse races that occupy the city’s main square for … Continue reading

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Will this pleasure never end?

If any of you are lucky, or clever, enough to be able to read Arabic you can now enjoy The Scent of Cinnamon in translation, in the Albawtaqa Review. For more information, click here.

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Strage

Thirty years ago today I was teaching English at a summer school in Malvern. The students, aged between 12 and 16, were mostly from Europe and the largest group came from Italy. They rarely watched the television – I don’t … Continue reading

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Two people, one bleeding

And here’s another review of Any Human Face, from The Fiction Desk this time. It’s typically perceptive and I particularly enjoyed this sentence: The character interactions are driven by Lambert’s interest in the way people react to power and vulnerability … Continue reading

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Little Monsters returns!

This is getting better and better. Bookeywookey (subtitle: LITERATURE GOOD AND BAD, THEATER,AND NEUROSCIENCE….NO REALLY), who wrote the excellent review of Any Human Face mentioned in the previous post, has turned his critical eye on Little Monsters. To flattering effect. … Continue reading

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